


and the fair moon rejoices

by KDblack



Series: KakaVege Week 2021 [5]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Amputation, Gen, M/M, Saiyan Instincts, Saiyans Still Have Tails, Use of the Dragon Balls, Vegeta is Bad at Feelings (Dragon Ball), but having his tail back helps, kakavegeweek2021, or rather they get their tails back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 10:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30121527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack
Summary: It starts the way things usually start: with a careless wish on the Dragon Balls. Goten and Trunks had somehow gotten it into their heads that gathering the damn things was a fun way to pass a week, only to abruptly realize they had no particular wish lined up. The brats decided to solve this the way they solved everything else. Vegeta started moving the moment the dragon appeared, as did Kakarot, but they’re too late. Gotenks, glowing brilliant gold, is already sitting on the dragon’s head.“I wish me and my dads had tails!” he says in the voices of two little boys who don’t think things through.“Your wish has been granted,” the dragon booms, and that’s that.(Kakavege Week 2021 - Day 5: Saiyan HC's)
Relationships: Son Goku/Vegeta (Dragon Ball), Trunks Briefs & Son Goten
Series: KakaVege Week 2021 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2209920
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39
Collections: Kakavege Week





	and the fair moon rejoices

It starts the way things usually start: with a careless wish on the Dragon Balls. Goten and Trunks had somehow gotten it into their heads that gathering the damn things was a fun way to pass a week, only to abruptly realize they had no particular wish lined up. The brats decided to solve this the way they solved everything else. Vegeta started moving the moment the dragon appeared, as did Kakarot, but they’re too late. Gotenks, glowing brilliant gold, is already sitting on the dragon’s head.

“I wish me and my dads had tails!” he says in the voices of two little boys who don’t think things through.

“Your wish has been granted,” the dragon booms, and that’s that. Vegeta barely even feels it when the Dragon Balls zoom off again – too distracted by a sudden pain in his lower back. An old scar bursting with new life.

“Oh boy,” Kakarot sighs, glancing down at the thick length of fur protruding from his gi. “Kami’s not gonna be happy about this.”

Vegeta says nothing. If he opens his mouth, he might do something he’ll regret. Like laugh, or worse, cry. All these long years of waiting, slowly accepting that something has gone wrong, he’s never getting his lost limb back, and it’s restored thanks to the careless wishes of two children who had their malformed tails removed at birth. He wants to kill something. He wants to pick them both up and never let them go.

Gotenks defuses soon after, leaving them to deal with the fallout. At least Trunks and Goten are all right. Vegeta doesn’t know the specifics of what happened to their original tails, but he saw the photographs once on Bulma’s computer: stark, bloody, pitiful. Goten’s tail had been undersized and lacked some important muscles. Trunks’ tail had been riddled with what looked like tumours. The ones they have now – Goten’s a proper brown, Trunks’ as defiantly purple as his hair – appear to be healthy. They move fluidly and don’t have any abnormalities in their ki, at any rate, so Vegeta doesn’t stop the brats from playing around and chasing them. Maybe it’s because Gotenks wished for a tail before defusing; instead of having their original tails restored, they ended up with new ones rooted in a Fusion’s only semi-real anatomy. In which case, Vegeta should probably be glad they’ve spent so much time fusing that it’s harder for the brats to get it wrong than right.

If it had been him and Kakarot –

Forget it. If it had been him and Kakarot, the Fusion wouldn’t have made such a stupid wish. Still, it’s… good… to have his tail back. Tails are important. There’s a lot that can be communicated through one, even if you spend most of your life with it wrapped safely around your waist.

On the flight back to Bulma’s, it occurs to Vegeta that Kakarot hasn’t wrapped his tail. It sways behind him, sinuous, playful, wriggling in gentle, confused curves. His grin is strained and toothy as ever, manic cheer mixed with an entirely un-Saiyan-like calm, but his tail says that he’s confused and thinking something over. Moving it at once tentatively and utterly without caution. Slowly, methodically, exploring a piece of himself that had been lost long ago. 

Vegeta looks away quickly, unsure what he just saw. Part of him still screams that Saiyans don’t acknowledge weakness unless they’re trying to draw attention to it. The rest of him is… uncertain. He remembers what Saiyans were. That doesn’t mean he knows what Saiyans are. The hot, barren sands of the world he was named for are still burned into his memory, but Sadala was not a desert planet. Saiyans evolved in a place of mountainous forest, deep oceans, and hot jungle. Perhaps that’s why Kakarot has thrived on earth. Mutilated, brain-damaged, completely oblivious to his history and his people, but still living. Still fighting. Until recently, that’s more than Vegeta could do.

Looking at him now, Vegeta realizes he’s never seen Kakarot with a tail before. He knows Kakarot wasn’t always missing a limb, has seen Gohan whole a few brief times before the brat turned his back on his heritage entirely, but it’s not the same. 

Tails are important. There’s a lot that can be communicated through one: mood, intent, even battle plans. Vegeta learned to control his tail at an early age, kept it wrapped both for safety and to ensure no one could read him. He had to re-learn how to express himself after he lost it. Kuririn’s noted that Vegeta’s vocal range has broadened over the years, that his face is more mobile now than it was before, and Vegeta didn’t deny it. He’s still not as good at facial expressions as earth natives are – as Kakarot is – but he’s leagues away from where he used to be.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?”

“Nothing,” Vegeta snaps, glaring automatically.

Kakarot grins, as usual, cheerful and utterly opaque. Vegeta can’t read it as anything but a quiet threat, but a flicker of brown makes his eyes drop lower. At Kakarot’s waist, his tail sways back and forth, a clear gesture of affection. The movements are still clumsy, more instinctive than anything else. That makes it worse. Vegeta jerks his eyes away, face burning. Kakarot’s smile is deceptive, the way most of his adopted peoples’ are, but his tail is terribly honest.

It must be the long years of amputation that make Vegeta’s tail twitch around his hips, aching to unwrap and sway sweetly back.


End file.
